The revolutionary blockchain technology was made for one thing – to disrupt the old order and solve real-life problems. HouseAfrica’s Nnamdi Uba is one of the figures in the African space showing that blockchain is much more than crypto and NFT, but can be applied to other facets of life.
Nnamdi Uba is committed to solving land and property titling issues, using blockchain technology. In a chat with Technext, the co-founder/ CEO of HouseAfrica explains the process and what they have been able to achieve within a relatively short period.
He recalls reading about blockchain in 2015, at the time bitcoin was the only popular crypto and was majorly used for MMM. Later, he started to realise that blockchain was not only about crypto, but solutions that could be built with technology.
HouseAfrica: solving real estate issues
Nnamdi said HouseAfrica was borne out of the desire to solve real-life problems coupled with his unpleasant experience of losing money to property scams.
After an experience of purchasing land in dispute, Nnamdi Uba and his team noticed it was not just his experience alone. It was a market trend. Then, they ran a survey and realised that 90% of the respondents had been once scammed or knew someone who has been a victim.
They also realised that the problem wasn’t peculiar to Nigeria. Then, they decided to do something about it.
“We also understood that why these scams happened is because 95% of lands in Nigeria do not have titles and the ones that have are still on paper and don’t get updated for a long time. This has brought about dead assets in Nigeria valued at about $900B.”
– Nnamdi
Read also: A chat with Senator Ihenyen on how SiBAN is making Nigeria a safe blockchain space
The platform focuses on private real estate developers, digitising their process from sales to allocation. Then issuance of digital certificate or deed to their buyers that is verifiable on Blockchain that they buy these properties or lands from them.
“HouseAfrica was birthed by our quest to use blockchain to solve a real-life solution. We have already experienced scams in buying properties. Endy, my co-founder had been going back and forth with a land transaction with a double allocation. There was no way to prove the real owner.”
– Nnamdi adds
And, the market reverb has been significant: “Within 10 months of our relaunch, we have digitised over 200k+ properties in 210+ gated communities or estates”, he told me.
Below are the links to some of their digitised landed properties:
- Diamond Gate estate in Ibeju lekki
- Eastern Ville Estate in eastern by pass Nairobi Kenya
- Hazana Smart City in Ibadan
“At, HouseAfricaWe are building and preparing all our clients for that time”, he adds.
Nnamdi on blockchain in Nigeria
Nigeria is at the forefront of blockchain adoption in Africa.
According to a Finder crypto report on the Cryptocurrency Adoption Index for the Month of August 2022, Nigeria is among the global top 3 countries in terms of crypto adoption with 27% of the total population of internet users aged 18+ currently owning cryptocurrency.
Related post: 58 million Nigerians now own cryptocurrency- Finder report
Nnamdi believes that his company is another expression of the possibilities of blockchain application in the business space. He notes that are other notable examples in Nigeria and indeed Africa. This includes mentions real estate, supply chain and agriculture.
He thinks that there is a need to educate aspiring founders on the potential of blockchain technology as well as dispel most of the misinformation about the ecosystem,
“Though there is a need for more awareness too. A lot of people still think Blockchain is a scam or Ponzi. Not knowing is just a new technology. Then, apply to real-life use cases without hype.”
For Nnamdi, the ecosystem is should anticipate some interesting times ahead. He believes that private companies who want to maintain transparency and trust in their operations will get into blockchain in the next ten years. This will, in turn, attract significant funding and talent.
Going forward, Nnamdi Uba plans to build trust in the real estate market with a more diverse range of solutions with HouseAfrica.
“I want to make sure that you can buy a property without being afraid. I want to make sure that your ownership of a particular property is verifiable anywhere in the world. Making lands and properties bankable to increase financing and wealth growth for people of Africa. This is what people should expect from me and HouseAfrica.”
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